Visit to childhood hometown of Harlingen results in reunion

David Adame/Caller-Times

Thirteen women responded to a friendship tea invitation extended to them by the one friend they have in common, Josie Perez (lower left). Perez said she got the idea for the tea last year when she returned to her childhood hometown of Harlingen to visit an aunt.

Liboria "Libo" Sendejar works in the Public Disclosure Unit for the Seattle Police Department.
   Maria del Carmen Zamarron is a supervisor of X-ray technologists at a Harlingen medical clinic.
   Dee Brunson is a local part-time food demonstrator at Sam's Club, while Marilyn Croxton, a registered nurse, manages Christus Spohn South Hospital's nursery.
   Sendejar, Zamarron, Brunson and Croxton had never met, until Saturday, when they and nine other women turned out for tea, an invitation extended them by the one friend they have in common, Josie Perez.
   "This was very Josie," Sendejar said of the event that brought the sisterhood together for the first time to enjoy food and laughter and celebrate friendship.
   "She is someone who really appreciates and treasures people. Personally, I'm a little guarded, not quite so open to embrace people in general. But she is a very good soul and she makes it very easy to be her friend. I wish there was more of that going on in the world today."
   An invitation letter
   Perez said she got the idea for the friendship tea last year when she returned to her childhood hometown of Harlingen to visit an aunt. The emotion of that trip down memory lane poured into the invitation letter that went out last month to 17 of her closest friends, among them elementary, junior high and high school friends, friendships forged when she married and raised a family or that she made at work.
   "I realized that I was almost 60 years old and hadn't told my special friends how much their friendship has meant to me," Perez wrote in the invitation letter. "All of you are special and have influenced my life and fed my soul."
   Croxton cried when she received Perez's novel invitation, reflecting on all those times that it was she, not Perez, whose soul had been fed.
   Rose petals saved
   Such as the time Croxton's mother died.
   Unable to bear throwing out all her mother's beautiful funeral floral arrangements, Croxton saved all the rose petals, storing them in plastic bags inside the freezer.
   Perez later asked for the petals, promising to surprise Croxton with a special gift in memory of her mother.
   What Croxton got back was a fragrant rosary that nuns of the Incarnate Word Academy fashioned out of the compressed rose petals.
   "I cried like a baby, touched by her gift from the heart," Croxton said. "Everything Josie does is special."
   Then there were those early years when Perez, a former licensed vocational nurse, encouraged Croxton, who hadn't been in a classroom in 18 years, to pursue her dream of becoming a registered nurse. For Christmas one year, Perez even gave Croxton a Model T ornament bearing the words "Keep chugging along," which Croxton still hangs on her holiday tree every year.
   Met in second grade
   Zamarron met Perez when both were in the second grade at Harlingen's Thomas Jefferson Elementary School.
   The two last saw each other as girls the summer after graduating from sixth grade when Perez's family left for Michigan and Ohio. That was the first and only summer that Perez's family took up migrant work, shortly thereafter settling in Corpus Christi.
   Zamarron and Perez found each other again 47 years later when Perez tracked down her long lost friend. Both had an occasion to visit during a trip Perez took to the Valley.
   "We cried and cried when we saw each other after so many years," Zamarron said. "It took me back to a 12-year-old I never had the chance to say goodbye to."
   But Zamarron quickly corrected herself. This time there won't be any reason for goodbyes, Zamarron said, explaining that she often goes to see her daughter in San Antonio and from now on will stop in Corpus Christi to visit with Perez.
   See each other regularly
   Sendejar and Perez, on the other hand, who've known each other since seventh grade, have seen each other regularly. Every summer when Sendejar comes here to visit family, a visit with Perez is always on the itinerary.
   They reminisce about the many Miller High School dances that they attended, the 10 p.m. curfews they had to abide by, the chaperones they had to endure and the dresses their mothers sewed for them.
   "When I picture the future, I see two little old viejitas (ladies) sharing dessert, browsing bookstores, enjoying the same kind of music and the arts," Sendejar said.
   For Perez, her friends are more than her inner circle; they are a part of her family.
   "Just the mention of their names fills my heart with joy," said Perez, who, like Brunson, works as a food demonstrator at Sam's Club. "Each of them has carved a niche in my heart. I can't even imagine not having them in my life."
   Croxton knows exactly what Perez means.
   "Your soul hungers for this kind of friendship and I've been blessed to have Josie as a friend. Most adults have only two or three really, really close friends in their life. Josie has 17. And some people describe such a friendship as being connected at the hip. But we're connected at the heart."